Hi! Wow. Two parts in one week...what am I on??? Don't answer that. This part reveals a lot about the plot. Just for fare warning, this part has some depressing moods. A lot of depressing moods, actually. I made three characters cry. *sighs* OK. That's all, happy reading!
Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story belong to me, as they all belong to JK Rowling (and her publishers too, I think...oh well, whatever).
The Potion of Immortality:
Part FiveNeville's innocent smile vanished when he saw Ron and Hermione glaring at him. "What? This is Finecci..." Neville's eyes grew to be twice their normal size as Hermione approached him, eyes blazing with anger. Neville gave Ron a quick questioning look, but he received no comfort.
Ron's face matched his hair color, and he was shaking with suppressed anger when he said calmly, "This isn't about the cat, Neville."
"Umm. OK." Neville was now cornered at the back of the common room, and he saw endless faces turned looking at the scene his entrance had caused. The common room had filled up with students who had also recently returned early from winter vacation.
"Ron's having some problems. I don't know what's up with him..." Hermione was staring at Ron, shaking her head and breathing heavily. "He's suddenly become all...possessive, or-"
"I have not become possessive-"
"Could have fooled me," someone teasingly called out.
Ron continued, but less confidently than before. "I just think that something's wrong with him," Ron cried out, gesturing towards Neville. "That's all." Ron was furious that no one was openly agreeing with him. "Guys? And Girls too, I mean?" Ron asked searching around the room for support.
"What, is this gunna turn into some kind of interrogation? Let's all see what's wrong with Neville, shall we!?" Neville was sounding rather hysterical. "He acts so quiet...but why? Is that what you want to know? Is it!?" Neville's eyes were brimming with uncried tears as he screamed out, "Well, why don't you ask the Death Eaters who ruined my life! Ruined my parents..forever...why don't you ask them? Maybe THEY could tell you." Neville sunk to the floor with his arms hugging his knees and his shoulders shaking with waves of emotion.
Hermione looked at Ron in horror, and tried to comfort Neville by stroking his shaking form, but Neville shrugged her hand off.
"Ron," Hermione whispered hoarsely, "What've we done to him?"
Harry Potter, who had been observing the scene from the background, decided it was time he got involved.
"Neville, let's go to our dormitory..." Harry said gently as he helped Neville to his feet. Neville stood swaying and looked first at Harry, and then around at the other curious faces. Without saying anything to Harry, Ron, or Hermione, Neville made a mad dash up to his room. Finecci looked confused for a few moments, but then trotted up the stairs after Neville.
Harry sighed and gave a hopeless look towards Ron and Hermione, who were still standing and staring at the place Neville had been only moments before.
"Now what," Harry asked in a raspy voice unlike his usual cheery tune. Ron shook his head, and Hermione let out a small sob. Harry reached out to hug her and she fell into his arms quivering with unleased emotions.
Neither noticed when Ron stormed away, dragging Neville's trunk behind him. Ron gave his friends a last frustrated glare at the top of the stairs before he charged into his room and yanked the curtains closed around his bed. He was so angry with everything that he didn't think to wonder why Neville's sobs weren't echoing through the room.
Neville slammed the door to create more drama, and wiped the fake tears from his face. He stretched out comfortably on his bed, and smiled when he noticed the dead silence surrounding him. Voices could usually be heard from the common room, but he must have made such an impression on everyone that they were shocked silent.
Neville resisted the urge to laugh out loud when the door creaked open and slammed. Must be Weasley, Neville thought, Potter never gets that angry. If it was Potter, he would already be here "comforting" me. Neville closed his eyes, and allowed his mind to randomly wander as he listened to the sounds of Weasley's frustrated muttering.
Yeah, that's right. Wimper over things that don't matter, like you're always doing. You don't even know the half of it, Weasley. Honestly, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? Neville tried to imagine saying something like that to Weasley, but knew that he never would- or could. Well, I'll tell you something, Weasley. I always felt out of place in my life. For as long as I can remember, I've been a joke in my pure blooded family, and just about everywhere else too. Hogwarts is still the worst place I can remember trying to fit into...At least in my primary school we did "Creative Activities" where a variety of skills and parts of the mind were stimulated.
Here, no one cares if you can draw a pretty picture. No one's impressed if you could do something- they only care if you can do it while they're watching. Neville hadn't noticed that tears were running slowly down his puffy cheeks. We rarely did anything with magic, and when we did we needed parental approval slips to be signed. It was always rather horrific to have to announce to the teacher that my parents were not...well, in their right minds. My classmates would stare, and I would hang my head while my teacher sent an owl to my grandmother asking if what I was saying was the truth.
In the return owl, Gran would say that it was the truth, but she would also say what hurt me even more. "We think that Neville's a squib. He's never shown any magical abilities, so I don't give permission for him to be involved in the activity." That hurt worse than anything anyone could ever imagine. Even my own grandmother thought I was useless.
Neville's pillow was now damp with him own tears, but he ignored them and continued his trail of thoughts. When my uncle, Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew, came to my grandmother's house (I still don't feel at home in it, so I'm not going to refer to it as home even though I've spent the greater part of my life living in it) three months ago, I was agog. Finally, there was something promising coming into my life! Important, famous people could look up to me will the knowledge that I, Neville Longbottom, was special.
It was all I ever wished for: to be recognized as a real person. Maybe if DUMBLEDORE had noticed me, I would be fighting on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately for his sake, I was called to the Dark Side, and will fight faithfully for the side that first acknowledged my existence until my death.
Neville sat up and rubbed his head with his sweaty palms, tired of thinking such "deep" thoughts. He sat on the edge of his bed, not noticing Finecci circling his ankles, rubbing against him. Neville clamored the rest of the way out of his bed, and quickly retrieved the invisibility cloak out of his trunk. He left the dormitory ready to prove his worthiness to Voldemort.
Draco Malfoy sat on the train going back to Hogwarts, watching the ever darkening clouds form strange shapes and cast eerie shadows throughout his compartment. A strip of light jetted out through the clouds and bounced around the room, temporarily amusing Draco, before finally being swallowed up again by the enclosing darkness. Like everything else in his life, the clouds would come and block out the sun, his happiness, but then a ray of hope would escape, only to vanish again into the depressing darkness.
Draco blinked back the tears threatening to spill over. Why now? Why? Draco put his head on the inky black table, and wrapped his right arm around his head. When the compartment door burst open, and Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown fell in laughing inbetween kisses, they didn't notice Draco huddling near the window sitting cross-legged in the booth. Dean glanced up to take in some air, and gaped at Draco. This was not the typical Draco Malfoy he saw at school, and he gestured at Draco to Lavender, who let out an inaudible gasp.
Their presence alone was enough to force Draco out of his stupor, however, and he hissed at both of them, "Get out. Now." Whether it was that Draco had puffy eyes or that his usually immaculate hair was horribly disheveled that caused Dean and Lavender to leap up and flee the room was unclear, but it was certain that Draco's appearance had frightened them.
Dean slammed the door loudly and wiped some lipstick off his mouth before he stated the obvious. "I think something's wrong with Malfoy." Lavender leaned against the wall, swaying with the movement of the train.
"Dean," she said calmly, "there's always been something wrong with Malfoy." Dean nodded his head in agreement, but gave the compartment door a second glance before sliding his arm over Lavender's shoulder and giving her an encouraging smile.
Draco listened to Thomas and Brown's conversation, and was pleased to hear that he had given them a scare, but was disturbed to learn that Thomas thought something was the matter with him. Draco moaned quietly and rested his head on the smooth surface of the table.
The clouds glimmered bizarrely and a streak of lightening struck down a nearby tree, showering everything within forty yards of it with dazzling orange yellow sparks. Draco began to quietly chuckle to himself and was unable to stop for the next twenty minutes. By then, he had returned to softly crying. He cried over the loss of his childhood, over the confusion his newfound life as a Death Eater was bringing into his life.
He cried for a thousand reasons, yet he also cried for no reason at all. He only stopped crying when it began to drizzle and eventually pour ice cold rain on the trees, the ground, and everything inbetween. He shivered in sympathy watching a small gray squirrel huddle amidst the intertwining branches of an ancient dying tree.
When he stood in front of the entrance to the Slytherin dungeon a few hours later, no one in their right minds (which didn't exactly include all of the Slytherins) would have thought that Draco had been crying. After all, why would the great Draco Malfoy, perhaps the coldest person at Hogwarts, need to cry?
When Draco finally was admitted to enter (he hadn't knwon the password and waited a long time before another Slytherin went out) he acknowledged his acquaintances, and raised a cocky eyebrow to the four prettiest Slytherin girls, who all clung together making a strangely impressive group. The Slytherin boys frowned together when Jenika Sandie, the sixth year leader of the four pretty Slytherins, gave Draco a tight embrace a seductive smile. Draco grinned quickly at her, his sparkling white teeth flashing, but when he saw the glares the other boys were giving him he retreated and continued through the cold hallways to his dormitory.
He flopped back on his bed, and fluffed up his green pillow. Draco glanced around at the depressing rough walls of his room, and wished he had a window to look out so he would at least be able to see how horrible it was outside, and not just feel it. He realized that since the dungeons were underground there probably couldn't be any windows. There I go, acting like a blond again. Honestly, I'm surprised Potter hasn't started teasing me about being blond yet. Well, Draco thought wryly, maybe he's jealous.
At ten o'clock that night, Draco and Neville, who was hidden under Draco's invisibility cloak, snuck into the library and were still there three hours later. Draco was getting ever closer to discovering the secret to how how Potter's downfall was possible, but Neville was being very difficult to get any information out of.
"What?" Draco realized that Neville had been saying something to him.
Neville rolled his eyes and repeated himself. "It's in these papers. Here." Neville shoved a pile of warn down papers towards Draco, who suddenly looked interested.
"The Potion of Immortality, huh? Sounds like a load of crap to me...wait, no, it sounds exactly like this other thing. What's it called? You know what I'm talking about." Draco arched an unimpressed narrow eyebrow at Neville, who seemed to be contemplating something while biting his lip. It briefly crossed Draco's mind that Neville was thinking about chewing on his lip, but gave Neville a chance to explain himself.
"You mean the Elixir of Life? Yeah...it's a bit similar to that, but, well..." Neville was frustrated that Draco couldn't see the difference since it was so obvious to himself. "Lemme put it this way. You only have to drink the Potion once, and you're "immortal" forever- whereas with the Elixir of Life, you've got to continuously drink it or else it wears off. Also, um, the Potion is easier to make- if you know how."
Neville's eyes sparkled with malice, and Draco suppressed a shudder before he shot back, "Are you saying, Nev, that you know how to make the Potion? If you do, then why are you researching it...?"
Neville smiled coldly. "Other people at this school know more about it than I do, and I don't intend to keep it that way. We must always be better, Drai, always. Gotta stay on top...can't ever be defeated."
"Come again?"
Neville jumped as if he had been broken free of a trance, and quickly replied to Draco, "Why do you think I'm dating Granger? Why would I waste my time like that, unless I had greater reasons?"
"I never said anything about GWMP..." Neville's head shot up suddenly, and he narrowed his eyes.
"So you figured out the nicknames, eh? Or did Daddy have to tell you?"
"It was both, Nev...I mean, come on..." Draco shifted in his red velvet chair and looked around self consciously. "Someone's bound to notice that I'm not alone here...Why does it matter if they know we're friends? Things are so messed up already, or they will be soon, that no one will think to put two and two together..."
"This is exactly what I'm talking about...we've got to keep it that way! The more precautions the better. Granger's already figured out more than is good for her. And that Weasley, he's becoming dangerous too," Neville whispered in a panicky voice. "Master said that I could do anything I needed in order to keep people from discovering...I think we need to start researching what I really came here to figure out. We've got to get Weasley under our control...make him do what we want."
"You're not going to do the Imperius Curse, are you? D'you know how much trouble-"
"DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I CARE?"
Draco sat back in his chair, and stared off at the high ceiling of the room. "I don't know anymore. Calm down, Nev...someone's bound to hear! Right, get a grip on yourself...stop panicking...it's all under control, right?" Somewhere Draco had stopped talking to Neville and started talking to himself, but the lines were unclear. Draco looked back at the place he thought Neville was seated and whispered loudly, "If you don't care about getting in trouble, then why don't you just take the cloak off? Wait, where's Finecci? You didn't leave her with the Gryffindors, did you!?"
"Ah. She'll be fine. Harry Potter's not going to let anything happen to a sweet, innocent, cat like yours..." Neville stripped off the invisibility cloak to reveal a pale round face with empty eyes. "I was thinking we could try out this curse on Weasley. It looks fun, and it hasn't been used in a hundred years. I'm sure it'll confuse everyone..." Neville presented Draco with a thick yellowing book open to a page near its middle. After studying the brief explanation of what the spell did to a person under its influence, Draco had to agree that it sounded like what they needed, even though it had pretty nasty effects on the person who underwent the spell.
"Sounds," Draco pursed his lips and kept from saying what he really thought, "great. It sounds exactly like what we need. Why do you think Weasley's a threat, and how are you going to be able to do that," Draco inquired looking at how much experience and knowledge was expected of a person who was going to use the spell.
"I've already got it together...everything's ready. I just wanted to make sure you agreed that it was the proper spell. Weasley isn't just jealous of me because I have the mudblood...I'm sure of it. He's got deeper reasons for not liking me than that. So I think it's best we get him out of the way. Also, he'll come in use later on." Neville grinned at Draco and marked the page with a small bit a paper before closing the heavy book silently. "What else was there to talk about? Oh, yeah. Drai, you need to figure out how to get unicorn blood. It'll kill Potter in an instant. I think that's it-"
"WHAT? Unicorn blood? How will that do anything to Potter?" Draco was tired of being told what to do without knowing why he should do it, and he was finally ready to stand up and ask what he wanted, and needed, to know.
"I thought you'd figured it out by now," Neville said slowly, "Harry Potter's parents gave him a swig of the Immortality Potion. They figured out how to do make it, and thought that since Voldemort would want to kill him anyway, he's got some powerful blood in his background, it would be good for him to be able to survive Voldemort's attacks." Neville looked at Draco's stunned face and cracked an evil smile.
"But...but...but Harry Potter's parents died to keep him alive! My father told me! Why would they bother to if they knew he'd survive? And what would Unicorn Blood do to him? He's already immortal..." Draco spat out the last word painfully, it obviously aggravated him to know that Harry Potter had survived all those attacks not because he was a great powerful wizard, but merely because his parents had been clever.
Neville sighed and began gathering his books and papers together. "Give it a rest, Drai. You'll figure it out eventually. The Unicorn Blood has the opposite effect on a person with the Immortality Potion in their blood than it would on a person without." Neville walked out of the library without bothering to look back. Draco stood horrified for a half hour, but when the sound of a book falling off of a shelf brought him back to his senses he fled the library, also not looking back.
If Draco or Neville had bothered to give the library one last glance before darting out of the door, they would have noticed a small shape huddling in the corner behind several stack of books. Ron Weasley picked up the book he recently dropped, thankful Malfoy hadn't bothered to check where the sound had come from. He was stunned to discover that he had been right about Neville all along, but was sad to recognize the fact that Harry and Hermione would never believe him.
A/N: Ah! How did I finish this so quickly? I hope it wasn't too..umm...wierd. Actually, this part was pretty normal in comparison to part three- the cherry chapter! I was listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who totally rock!) when I wrote this, if that explains any of the depressing moods (like Draco on the train..hehe). Please take the time to write a quick review, I'm really desperate for them. If you give me a signed review I'll check out your fics and give you a review (request reviews for a specific story, please!).
Thanks! ~dani the semi-blonde Death Eater who loves Draco Malfoy and worships the ground Voldy walks on~